Horses, Life, A Touch of Geek

Milton February 2017

As with Rodney yesterday [Feb 2017], an update on Milton, who is also on the calorie-boosting train.

We have been wrestling with thrush all winter. I can’t believe I posted about it in November [Drought]. ?!? This is embarrassing. Thrush is a management disease.

Their soles were fine. Their frogs were fine. The channels on the side of their frogs were fine. No horrid smell. No crumbly black nastiness coming off their feet. Just the smallest amount of gunk buried deep down in the cleft of the frog(s). Rodney had it in all four. Milton had in only one back foot most of the time (see below). You can imagine how thrilled they were to have us rooting around in their frogs.

We used green goo. We used purple goo. We used brown goo. We used long cotton swabs. We packed their feet with gauze. We would treat their feet & put them up. Nothing worked. In our defense, Blacksmith said that this sort of thrush can be really hard to get on top of.

Box O’ Footcare

What finally worked was a short amount of tubing and a syringe to drive the green goo down into the frog. We are currently prophylaxing by alternating green goo via tubing with clear goo that comes with a long snout on the bottle.

Therefore, Milton rested much of last month, as he tried to decide which foot was about to fall off. My left hind hurts. No, wait, it’s my right hind. Oh, did I hear dinner? Here I come on a run. Drama queen? Him?

Milton did take another tiny step toward a career as a driving horse. We do not have enough availble bodies to take the next step with the practice cart [MPC]. We would need, at minimum, a driver/handler and a person on either side to hold the shafts. Instead, I held up a single pole to his side as a pretend shaft. Ersatz, but at least something. He thought it was weird, but he did not say Oh. Hell. No. We creep forward.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

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Priney had thrush once, Chief never. And she only had it when she was wearing shoes. The green goo worked. For both of them, their feet seemed to stay healthier when they were barefoot. Of course, Priney could never remember which leg she pretended to be lame on when she saw my dressage instructor. I’d pop her over a low jump and she was fine except for being frustrated at blowing her ‘too lame for dressage’ act. I’m sure you remember how expressive she could be…